Elizabeth Warren had a plan for your spilling coffee on your lap. Which is why Nikki Haley is the most likely first female president.
For the record, the price you pay for nominating Joseph Biden over Bernie Sanders is that you will lose the vote of someone with the twitter name ‘neotrotsky’. As a matter of course, that in itself is quite alright — given the choice between a reincarnation of Leon Trotsky and Donald Trump, I guess I would have to side with goddamned Trump. Meantime, the voter that will be lost if Sanders is nominated … less likely to be on twitter — i guess out there on facebook.
Sanders is maybe not the Soviet apparatchik “neotrotsky” is hoping he would be. Sure, he was on the wrong side of history with the Sandernistas, but in that civil war… there was no right side of history. But on the great Soviet Union honeymoon — he was right there with Reagan — easing the Cold War in Gorbachev’s Perostroki. I suppose neotrotsky would just have to console himself with Sanders being a little more favorable to Castro’s Cuba than would let him win Florida. (And also have to remain one step ahead of neostalin).
There is a year old Vogue photograph I see was trending around, as a memorial to the Elizabeth Warren campaign. It shows all the women who were in the Democratic nomination contest — minus hour self help guru Marianne Williamson, but including Tulsi Gabbard– in a group photo of mutual satisfaction — a high five of sisterhood. The notices on these things is sadly noting the last women exiting the race. Never mind the problem — and I will never be able to figure the counter-factuals where some mediocre men are floating above some mediocre women for a job title I am increasingly viewing as ipso facto the Peter Principle refuge (particularly as defined and understood by the public) — (patricia principle?)– and multiplied by a queasy entitlement narccissim — with the added cultis slavisness of supporters unable to view any shortcomings inherent in messaging and policy— Tulsi Gabbard is still in the race. Heck, the DNC just retroactively changed the thresh-hold rules on who can be in the next debate to disallow her after her smashing delegate haul in American Somoa. The matter would not be a matter except that Tulsi Gabbard is in the photograph — her campaign as plausible now as it was then. (I do hope she wins Hawaii, but wouldn’t know if that is even a faint possibility, controversial as she has become, dropping out instead of facing a house primary).
I was thinking of sliding into an element of “mansplaining” — repeat an observation I had at some gushing commentary on Hillary Clinton during her presidential bid. It was a case of defining identity politics incredibly narrowly — that she could relate to Hillary Clinton as a person as she, like Hillary Clinton, came out of an all woman’s college. Sure. But most women haven’t, and can’t relate. So where does that get you? One person wanting to have a beer with her and another not. At the end we had Clinton kvetching about married women voting the wrong way — which sure, some did — but that article spelled out my sense of foreboding.
It is next to impossible (but not completely) to imagine Joseph Biden not selecting a woman as his running mate, and though I see the griping of “beyond past time second slot is acceptable consolation”, well… (1) Did you hear about how Biden is old and stuff? (2) this is your pipeline. As it were, Klobuchar is the obvious selection for what seems like Biden’s thought process — have to double down on the midwest — but I note Clyburn — who Biden owes dearly — cloying floating he has an unnamed black woman as his ideal pick — thinly veiled allusion to Stacey Abrams. Otherwise the most likely first female president is… Nikki Haley.
Hey! Great news! Bloomberg stands to bequeath the democrats his online apparatus. Though… The thing about Bloomberg and his grand electoral history of flooding the zone. Go back to 2009, when the man ran for a third term of mayor he just made temporarily legal — and spent lavishly to destroy any opponent from getting the hint of traction. What did it get him? A narrow resentful plagued victory with the media watching the tallies rolling in slackjawed by the possible looming upset– a larger margin of victory would have probably been acquired by spending a tad less money and annoying everyone a little bit less. I guess Bloomberg got what he wanted, but, there is a lesson here as he unleashes his machine for suburban marginal democratic house seats.
We see Bill Maher dump a bunch of hot fakes last night. I zoom in on him thinking of the political price Trump has on his coronavirus response. The likes of Mark Pence and Washington Jay Inslee on the ground attempt an apoliticization, with Donald Trump unable to help himself. So goes a comical slide of Inslee grinning and “ignoring some voices in the administration” — ie Trump — and Pence awkwardly saddled with Donald Trump’s tweet storms. Just to remind you the circumstances where you do indeed wish Pence were the president — it doesn’t matter until it does.